WHAT WAS IT THAT STARTED YOU IN MAGIC?  My first memory of seeing a magician was at seven years of age at a school concert where a Chinese clothed gentleman borrowed a teacher’s watch, made it vanish and it reappeared in a locked box inside a large ball of wool.

It so stuck in my mind that I replicated the effect when I used to do children’s shows years ago And as a touch of added drama I used to put the ball of wool into a goldfish bowl and have the children pull the end to unwind the ball.It sounded very dramatic as the box was gradually revealed, making a noise as it bounced around inside the bowl, the end of the wool being fastened inside the lid of the locked box. It was a great children’s effect – must have been for me to remember all the details over the years. I even remember the colour of the original ball of wool. It was yellow and I replicated that as well!

The first trick I did was after witnessing a school friend who showed me the Sybil Rising Cards. This is where a freely selected card is returned to the pack which is placed inside a houlette with glass plates placed back and front and the card mysteriously rises from the centre of the pack. The cards and the houlette  can then be handed to the spectator for examination. 

I pleaded with this friend to tell me how it was done but he stubbornly refused (quite right) but he did tell me that I could buy the trick at a little magic shop in Green Street just off Leicester Square in London. I walked up some darkened stairs and an imposing man with bald head and glasses admitted me into this Aladdin’s Cave of Magic covered from floor to ceiling with magic props, posters, books and magic ephemera. It was a wonderland for a young fourteen year-old.

I told him what I wanted, he produced it,  wrapped it in an old magic poster, took seven shillings and sixpence off me and hurriedly ushered me out and locked the door. But I was enthralled and it was a trick that I did for some time later. (I should have kept the poster – today they’re worth thousands!)

It was Will Goldston’s Magic Shop that I had been directed to which is no longer there, in fact even the name of the street has been changed.

And the first book on magic I ever bought was “The Boy’s Book of Conjuring” which again was a revelation and handed me the key to performing tricks and starting on the road to a lifetime of magic. I still have that book today.

What was your first magic memory?

Filed under: Magic Miscellanea, Magic Thoughts